Finally Building The 67 F100

Unfortunately I didn’t find anything glaring that would drop the compression numbers to double digits. There’s some vertical superficial scratching on the cylinder wall. But it’s no less than the others. But the compression did gain 30psi wet which does still tell me there’s a ring issue. Occasionally these moly rings simply don’t seat.
One thing I did see was the exhaust valve seat looks like it’s beginning to sink. Doing a wet test on all combustion chambers showed lots of dripping on the exhaust valve vs the other chambers. But again, water wasn’t running like one would think considering hot compression was 90 psi.
Also here’s the side by side comparison of the old intake and new.

 

Well today was all about digging for information, and learning. What I’ve always known of ring gap is about .004-.005 per inch of bore diameter. This morning I pulled the number 5 piston and removed the top ring for measuring. It was .035
For reference it should be closer to .016-.020 with a 4” bore. This led me to track down the engine builder folder and found this was in fact what he intended. .035 for the top ring and .020 for the second. Well after making a few calls, and running numbers to find these are Kieth black hypereutectics, just like I’d installed in my first f100. I found they need a larger gap due to their raised top ring land being more susceptible to combustion heat. .026 top and about .020 bottom is what KB calls for, or .00625 per inch of bore for the top ring. In all truth I set the last Cleveland years ago, with these pistons to .016 like my manual calls for. Oops.
Anyway, I think I’m going to order a full set of rings and set them to .026-.028 , and get the heads to the machine shop tomorrow to assess the valve seats. If they’re not hardened, like I suspect, I’ll have him do the seats and a valve job. Then hopefully we’ll know the top end is good to go.

 

For reference this is .016 top vs .035 below.

 

Well once again most of this week was spent tracking down part numbers. After I ordered a full set of sealed power moly rings like the ring on top previously pictured, I realized the radial thickness is wrong and wouldn’t work with these pistons. So back into the internet rabbit hole to track down the correct rings for these kb pistons. I did eventually track them down but they won’t be here until Tuesday. So today I pulled the rest of the pistons to find the rod bearings are trash, with copper showing through about half of them. So new rod bearings are ordered and I’ll pull a few main caps to check their bearing conditions and clearances.
All of this is incredibly irritating for an engine that only has well less than 10k miles, likely less than 5k. At this point I’m just trying to make it right so in the next year or two when the 460 is ready to go in this engine and trans can go straight into either the Torino or Falcon.

 

The cylinder hone is done. That was fun. The first hone job I’ve done in about 18 years, which was also a Cleveland. The hone cleaned nearly all of the vertical scuffing up, with the exception of a couple very very minute scratches. But I’m hesitant to spend too much time with the single balls in there.
Still have lots of cleaning to do, then flip her over and check the crank journals and main bearings. I should have everything to reassemble the short block next weekend. Otherwise this week I need to clean the carbon off the rest of the pistons, clean the ring lands

 

I’ll post pictures soon but I’ve slowly been working on the Cleveland. The rings are all gapped and installed on the pistons and all of the rod journals have been checked with plastigage and are in perfect tolerances, .0015-,002. The short block goes together tonight for the last time. It doesn’t seem like much but this stuff is lots of time with little progress, but it’s also strangely therapeutic.
The heads are another level of fail. The machine shop got to them and guy called to say it would be $1,141 to rebuilt them. They needed everything. Valve stem retainer grooves were trashed, a few were working on becoming burnt, seats were bad, guides were massive and all needed replaced. The only good news was the deck was fine. So after a bunch of mulling and contemplating, I dropped the mystery rebuilt but rusty 351m heads of thinking we could use its intake valves at least. Well it turns out that while rusty, they were in stellar shape. The guides were new and perfectly located, already with hardened valve seats and good valve jobs. They just need cleaned up and new retainers for the 2 grove valves vs the 4 grove Cleveland valves. So a few hundred vs over a grand. And they’re the same heads save a few superficial differences, as the 2v Cleveland heads. So those will be ready next week, which means I’ll hopefully have this combo back in the truck next weekend.
Ps if anyone has a lead on some Aussie 2v Cleveland heads, they’d be my hero.

 

Just JB-Weld up your combustion chambers!

 

Well last night did not go as planned. The rod caps on numbers 1 and 5 were just not going on nicely. Which meant more tapping required to get the caps on, which caused the upper rod bearing to unseat and slide around. Super frustrating. And I was trying to assemble it myself. So FIL Jeff came up and helped with the assembly. We eventually found one bent ARP rod bolt on each of the rods, closing the end and making assembly extremely difficult. So I ordered two more rod bearings, and will order another set of ARP rod bolts to replace those two. Otherwise all the other 6 holes went together super smoothly. Unfortunately it’ll take a bit to get parts and I can’t assemble anything else of course without those two pistons in.

 

Wondering why the rod bolts are bent.

 

Man, that sucks. Better to catch it now and not spin a bearing later though.

 

I really wish I had an answer to that question. The mouth of both rods and caps are exactly where they should be. This is particularly stressful because up never want to have issues putting together the rotating assembly, and these are certainly issues. So I wish I knew the why, and when. But based on measurements and changing up assembly procedure, I feel it’ll be fine.

I could not agree more Roy. Although it would be fun to get that 460 build going early, I need this engine in good shape for the Torino, or Falcon.

 

Well I’m waiting on engine parts and found a home for the 72 parts truck so I finally decided to try and make a short wide bed. The flare side bed really limits tire width and factory short beds have become stupid expensive. And I already own this one and it’s not in great shape with the front totally rusted out, so a great candidate. I coasted the parts truck down to the barn and pulled the bed yesterday afternoon. Today after work I worked on laying out, marking and cutting the front of bed down. 16” comes out of the front and 4” from the rear. There’s still a ton of fitting to do before I even think about the welding but good progress anyway.
I’d initially intended to shorten the side box and door as well but the box is plastic instead of galvanized tin and it was melted and disgusting, full of rat turds among other things. So I’m thinking I’ll scab the removed rocker section from the other side in place eventually.

 

Today’s progress was not nearly as dramatic. Instead it was a ton of tedious fitting, and spot welding. Still a ton of welding to go but I ran out of light and it’s a school night so had to knock of. I’m fairly happy with it.
Keep in mind this is a practice run on a bed I intend to run in the short term, not the long term solution because it’s the wrong era, 70/72 instead of 67-69. So I’m not doing a bunch of rust chasing and repairing. It just needs to be functional. I will do my best to make it look as good as I can for what it is.

 

Had a very good day today. Spent much of it fitting and welding the inside of the front bed sides and replacing a section of the “bump” line that had been crunched and bondoed. And I finished welding and grinding welds down between rain showers. Then the bed got spin around and the rear marked, cut and began fitting it. That one actually went super smooth. The inner left corner needs trimmed and that should flatten out nicely. Then I need to get to town and harvest the filler panel for the tool box and more importantly, a tailgate!!
How about a bunch of pictures.
B.i

 

The bed is getting close. It’s all welded and mostly ground down. It still needs polished with the flap disc. At this point I’m contemplating what to do for a finish. Maybe hot rod black? It’ll probably get primer gray but I’m thinking of options. The heater box from the parts truck will get traded to buddy for a pair of great front fenders. I’m replacing the hood as well. So the thought was get those all prepped and long term temporary painted satin black. The other thing is the bed is turning out better than I’d figured. I’m almost thinking about building a body line extension like the 67-69 bed should have to replace reflector and keeping this bed for the long run.
In other news the parts truck went to its new home with an old buddy of mine. I hauled it to Astoria This morning and we had some killer fish and chips at the Bowpicker. Kind of made a day of it.

 

Got some time in the barn tonight. I picked up the heads from the machine shop yesterday. The father in law came by and after installing the new bearings and ARP rod bolts we got the last two pistons installed, and she rolls over very nicely. Tonight I got the heads installed, which went smoothly. Then the part I was sort of dreading-reinstalling the crane adjustable rocker kit. It is a monotonous job. I had one stud I had to remove about a 1/16” from due to bottoming out in the hole before the guide plates was tight. Everything else went well otherwise. The rockers , push rods and adjusters are on but hand tight. I’ll wait for the locktight to cure and adjust them tomorrow. It’s all downhill from here.

 

The Cleveland is coming along. The valves are adjusted, the oil pump pickup swapped and clearance checked to the oil Pan floor, spent a bunch of time straightening the oil Pan mounting flange and got that end buttoned up. The middle kiddo had a birthday party so had to split for awhile but got it prepped and painted before so when I came home the paint was dry with the pellet stove going right in front of it. The intake is mounted and the new giant double thick metal inner valve cover gaskets are mocked up. I had a bunch of bolts that were too short or too long so I made a list, shimmed the offending intake bolts with nuts, washers and sockets since I’d already put down the rtv china wall bead. So it’s torqued but I’ll need to swap a bolt at a time tomorrow. Also tomorrow I’ll prime the oil system before I button up the valve covers. It’s super close to mating to the c4 and ensuring good torque converter clearance, then plugging it into the truck!

 

Well here’s some progress! The engine and trans are mated and installed. Of course it took a ton of shuffling. Move the new bed with the cherry picker , back the jeep out, back the f100 partially out, roll the engine to the jeep bay, pull the cherry picker in, back the Toyota in, hump the trans onto the tailgate, hoist the engine off the stand and install the motor plate and flex plate, mate it to the trans, pull the Toyota back, jack up the f100, nag the wife to lend a hand 4 minutes before she goes to work, and slide the combo in. Smooth as butter. The new trans crossmember looks and seems to work great. The trick though will be when the exhaust pipes mate to the headers.

 

It was a nice evening today so I opted to work on outside in the strake pocket deletes. The other night I drilled out the top spot welds and air hammered the lower ones out to get the pockets themselves out. I wanted to just fill the holes but the turned down flange didn’t looks right so I used some bed cap material from a removed section and welded it in. One down, one to go. The hope is to have her mobile and start swapping this bed on this weekend.

 

Today was super productive. I shot over to the far side of town after dropping the boy off at school this morning and harvested the bed side panel and tailgate from a friends truck. When I got home I went to work in the barn getting a number of details buttoned up. So far the trans is all hooked up and plumbed, the fuel pump is replaced and plumbed, and the starter and headers are on. It was slow going. Small changes like intake height and slightly different port angles on the fuel pump mean messing with stuff twice as long as normal to reassemble.
After picking the boy back up from school it was too sunny to work inside so I worked on fitting and welding the bed filler panel in. It ended up with a weird bulge with the lower wheel well kicked out where it should be. But I’ll mess with that later on. Then I cut out the other middle stake pocket and patched it, and mounted the tailgate, which was interesting to do by myself but it’s in. And the bed is finally short and complete. Still a ton of grinding, hole filling and more grinding but it’s getting very close!
No engine pics but here’s more of the bed.